A terrible tragedy. Not only a great player but a great bloke from all accounts. Michael Clark has shown himself to be a class act through all of this – great captain, great friend and a great bloke. Well done Michael Clark in and through a very hard and sad time. And of course my thoughts are with the family and friends of Phil Hughes especially, but also the very distressed guy who bowled the bouncer – not his fault. I feel for him greatly.

This is my game – my sport. I don’t know any of those involved personally, but this has quite distressed me. I think because of my humanness but also because it has always been my sport.

Phillip Hughes – far too young and gone too soon. Very sad day for Australian cricket and cricket in general.

With major bushfires burning around the country – Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria especially – conditions are expected to worsen before they get better. Australia is in the grip of a major heatwave with temperatures well into the forties and approaching the fifty degrees celsius mark in many areas. It has been this way for weeks in Outback Australia and is expected to continue for some time.

The holiday season seems to be going on and on and on here in Tea Gardens, New South Wales, Australia and the Internet is behaving like it’s Tony Abbott’s slow version of the national broadband network already. It will be OK for a short period and then it is impossible to use at all. I’m not sure that it is as busy in town as it has been, but today there were a lot of people about again – change of shift perhaps? Anyway, I am trying to post some articles and what not – will see how things go over the rest of this week. The end of January still seems like a long way away sadly.